Up Date

  The past two months have been a crazy, discouraging, messy blur.  Between the end of the semester/finals, our discouraging news about insurance and not being able to adopt as soon as we would like, and of course my all of the medical issues with my mother, we have been running around like crazy. It's amazing the way that things can happen so fast, looking back on the past two months, I can't believe that we made it through in one piece.  Things like this can cause major contention with in families and instead of contention, I think that we grew closer together.
  Shortly after my last entry my family had a special fast for my mom.  I don't know how many members of the family my Grandma got a hold of, but no matter the number, it worked.  Monday when they did blood work her numbers improved greatly.  Over the next few days she came back to us.  The fog that had surrounded her began to fade and she was finally able to understand what was happening.  She was able to get up and walk around, and the have the biopsy to determine whether the vasculitis had spread to her kidneys.  They also did a biopsy on the sores on her legs the verify that they were actually vasculitis.  We were slightly surprised by the results.
  Turns out, she does not have vasculitis at all.  As I mentioned before she had MRSA in a wound on her hip, and they had put her on an IV and an oral antibiotic.  She had an extreme allergic reaction to the antibiotics and it severely damaged her kidneys.  When she came the Cedar in the first place her kidney function was low, but for it to have dropped so fast in such a short amount of time, well, we were lucky that we caught it so quickly, if we wouldn't have, she could have died.
  She was released from the hospital on May 3rd, she has not been able to go home yet.  Dr. Assiago wanted to keep her close in case anything went wrong again.  She has had to go to the hospital every few days to have blood work so that they could check her levels.  Slowly but surely her kidneys are moving from the kidney failure stage to the "Your kidneys just suck" phase.  Today they did a surgery to put a fistula in her arm in case she needs dialysis again, and everything went great.  She has one really wicked looking incision mark but everything went great.  The best part is, after almost two months she will get to go home next week.  She can't wait!  I am going to go to Blanding to help out with the newspaper for a while.  My dad was supposed to have back surgery yesterday, but the insurance company denied the surgery.  The Dr. is appealing it, but we haven't heard anything yet, but we are hopeful that they will be able to do it before the end of the summer.
  Most of you that knew me during college know that I have two favorite scriptures that I refer to often, mostly because things come hard for us.  The first is D&C 101:16 "Therefore, let your heart be comforted concerning Zion.  For all flesh is in mine hands.  Be still and know that I am God." And Mosiah 4:27 "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.  And again it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order."  These two scriptures were my salvation during times of trial and strife.  And right now, they have been ever present in my mind.
  Mom doesn't remember hardly anything from before she came to Cedar, which explains why she was acting so crazy.  A couple weeks ago, as her and I were talking about what had happened over the past couple months, I was expressing how difficult everything had been, especially with all of the adoption stuff.  She looked at me and said "You know, maybe it's a blessing to have the sky fall all at once.  If it happens all at once you can bounce back faster.  So maybe it's better this way."  I think she may be right.